


Outnumbered

by Black_Hole_of_Procrastination



Series: The She-Wolf & The Hound [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Adult Arya, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination/pseuds/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only a Stark would be mad enough to try breed a hound with a direwolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outnumbered

She is already in a state when her little lord brother comes barreling up to their holdfast, leaping from his saddle to pull her up off of her feet into an embrace. The lad’s grown like a weed since they’d seen him last, and he can now meet Sandor’s eye when they shake hands. 

Sandor wants usher them back inside. The maester had said she shouldn’t be on her feet for too long and Sandor wouldn’t mind sitting down himself. His bad leg’s been giving him more trouble as of late (though he’d never own to it). Besides, he can’t stand the servants gawping at the three of them as they stand in the middle of the yard. 

But before he can say a word, the lad is reaching into his half-open jerkin to pull out a tiny, fluffy, wriggling bundle.

“Bran’s tried breeding Summer with his best bitch,” Rickon explains, cradling the squirming pup to his chest. “I picked her special from the litter just for you.”

Arya cries out in delight, taking the thing into her arms. She peppers happy kisses on the pup’s head and her brother’s freckled cheeks. Sandor frowns and tries to ignore the oily feeling slithering in his gut. He’s not bloody jealous of a boy and a dog!

She names the beast Visenya. They’ve been wed long enough that he knows to bite his tongue from making any chaffing remark, but it does not stop him from rolling his eyes at the choice of name. His little wife has more of her sister in her than she’ll ever admit, her head filled with dragons and stories and other horseshit.

Sandor hates the little mongrel from the first. 

Only a Stark would be mad enough to try breed a hound with a direwolf. But when he says as much, Arya only laughs, and rests a hand on the small swell of her belly beneath her gown, her lips twisted in a teasing smile. He does not find the irony of his words amusing. 

It is the _babe_ ’s safety he thinks of. Her brothers and their wolves are one thing. They are men grown, or at least near to it. But inviting something wild into their home with a babe on the way? He has worries enough to add to the grey in his beard without throwing a fucking direwolf into it. 

He makes the mistake of japing about drowning the wretch only once. He’ll not soon forget the dark look that shutters across his wife’s face nor the ice in her voice when she threatens to geld him if ever he lays a finger on the animal.

That night he finds the door to her chambers barred against him. He spends a cold, miserable night twisting uncomfortably in the great chair in his solar, not wishing to sleep elsewhere and give the servants more to gossip on. 

It takes a week of sleeping in his chair and no small amount of groveling to finally gain her forgiveness. It is such a sweet relief to be restored to his she-wolf’s affections he doesn’t even complain about sharing their bed with another wolf. The pest leaves off well enough when they are first abed, curling before the hearthfire or prowling in the godswood, but most mornings find Arya gone from his arms and happily nestled around her wolf-pup instead. 

Arya is scarcely without the animal. It shadows her around the keep, loping along, and hopping about her legs. Though she treats it as if it were a well-loved lap dog, feeding it from her own hand and dropping absent kisses along it’s snout, the beast grows almost as rapidly as Arya’s stomach. Soon it stands up to Sandor’s knee, much too large to be gathered into Arya’s lap (not that his little wife could bend to scoop it up in the first place, with her belly so round). The mutt seems content enough to curl at her feet, receiving the occasional affectionate pet on the head.

Sandor grouses that she’s spoiled the animal and they’ll have no use from it. In truth, he does not think he’d ever risk trying to train the beast to hunt, but there’s no point in telling Arya that.  

He still makes an effort to train the pup a little. If it is to be around his wife and child, he intends to have it somewhat in hand. Besides, there is a small part of him, the part that’s still the grandson of a kennel master, that thrills at the challenge of undoing the bad behaviors Arya’s allowed the wolf. 

“What’s this? Are you making friends at last?” Arya teases when she catches him crouched on the ground of his solar, attempting to teach the beast some commands. Sandor had thought he was finally making some headway, but the pup scampered away the minute its mistress entered the room.

“I suppose if I can’t get _you_ to mind there’s little point in trying with this shewolf, hm?” he grumbles, hoisting himself to his feet slowly, ever mindful of his leg. 

Arya laughs and moves to steady him. His hand rests where her belly holds a pup of their own making.

“I’ll be outnumbered soon,” he says.

His wife stretches on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the unscarred part of his mouth.

“Lucky you.” 


End file.
